An Analysis on Illustration That Works
Illustration That Work: Professional Techniques For Artistic & Commercial Success is a book written by Greg Houston. It was written to serve as an “’everything-you-need-to-know’ guide to the world of professional illustration”. Houston covers a wide arrange of subjects through easy to understand diction and concise, to the point sentences.
Greg Houston, the author of this book is a working artist, having graduated from the Pratt Institute with his Bachelor of Fine Arts. He has been illustrating professionally since 1988. Houston boasts a wide array of clients from Warner Lambert Pharmaceuticals, Marvel Comics, San Diego Union Tribune, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and many more. Houston also teaches varying levels of art courses “from cartooning for kids to pre-college illustration classes, to courses for undergraduates and continuing studies students at Maryland Institute College of Art”. Along with teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Houston is also a co-founder of as well as an instructor at the Baltimore Academy of Illustration as well as an instructor for online art courses for Craftsy (an online platform that educates users about a wide variety of subjects such as quilting, cake decorating, and etc. through interactive video tutorials and downloadable workshops).
As the title suggests, Illustration That Works contains tips and insights for artists that want to do illustration for commercial purposes. Instead of telling the reader what to do and giving a step by step instructions on how to do things, the book gently guides and gives suggestions and ideas to reflect on in order for the aspiring artist to find success. The book itself contains fourteen chapters of different things that the author focuses on such as everything from Chapter 1’s “So You Want To Be An Illustrator” covering the basics of what a working illustrator does to Chapter 10’s “Fashion! Hair! Cars!” which discusses the importance of styling a character or piece correctly. Within each individual chapter are sections that Houston breaks down lessons and tips into an easy to digest and understandable format. Each chapter concisely hits the intended subject and purpose, leaving the reader educated on the subject quickly.
Due to the nature of the book in wanting to be the “everything-you-need-to-know guide”, Houston writes about a wide variety of things. There are three key types of chapters and sections that stand out: informative, instructional, and assignment. Informative pages are as the name suggests and educate the reader about a certain subject. They cover specific information that the author thinks that the reader should be educated about such as the definition of illustration and the difference between it and graphic design. Instructional pages are pages that Houston “teaches” or gives tips and suggestions in. These are the pages that display his expertise in the field, offering advise that is sometimes obvious and sometimes not. These types of pages are probably what the average reader wants to read about when they pick up this book. Finally, assignment pages take place typically at the end of a chapter as the final section. They ask the reader to do a series of assignments based on what the chapter the assignment page is on is about. Many of these assignments are what Houston himself assigns his classes he teaches in person. They are meant to be exercises that help the budding artist grow and gain experience so that they may build a portfolio based on illustration.
Illustration That Works, along with the text-based information it provides, includes a generous number of images along with the text. The images are often examples of what the chapter and or section is trying to discuss. Houston does a good job of including various mediums and styles from across time. While the majority are contemporary and modern, there are a great variety of provided examples from Georges Jules Victor Calirin’s large-scale traditional oil painting Entering The Harem (1870), to Mitra Modarressi’s watercolor and comically cute illustration for the children’s book Stay Awake, Sally.
My favorite chapter of Illustration That Works is Chapter 3: Art and Illustration: Surveying Illustration’s History. In a book oriented toward commercial success, although I expected the suggestions and tips in order to be successful, I did not expect to see a history portion. Two sections of this chapter, Art as Illustration and Portraits and Caricatures as Illustration, go over the history of art and what illustration is briefly, covering a wide array of pieces over a wide array of time. In the Art As Illustration section, Houston talks about the importance of illustration throughout time such as cave painting beginning illustration for the world as well as Gerrit Von Honthorst’s Musical Group On A Balcony (1622) depicting the history of illustrating musical events and the narrative nature of illustrations among others. Personally, I enjoy art history and I thought that it was a good thing that this book included a section on the history of art. I think that no matter how contemporary and how evolved things may get over time, that the beginnings of art and the basics should not be forgotten.
I also really like Chapter 7: Illustration’s Unsung Hero: Achieving Clarity through Composition. Throughout the chapter, Houston discusses the importance of composition when creating a piece. The subject of what is a successful composition versus what an uncomfortable and poor composition is brought up often, giving many and multiple examples drawn by Houston himself. Houston addresses how to diagram compositions as well as how to incorporate text with an image, two things that I am currently focusing on in my own work. While I did it find it to be written about things I had already thought about myself, the way that Houston had worded the tips and suggestions helped to shed new light on a familiar subject to me.
Houston’s Illustration That Works does well what it intended to do, covering a wide array of subjects in a two-hundred-page book. It informs the reader about various subjects, offers advice, as well as assigning assignments. To a beginning illustrator, this book is highly useful and informative, letting them know about the good and the bad about becoming an illustrator. While it may not go as in-depth into a subject as some may want, one must remember that this book was written in order to briefly cover a wide range of subjects. Personally, I found it to be good to read in order to brush up on a subject or to see things in a new light. The book is well written with wording that reads as though Houston is directly teaching you through the book. It is helpful and informative to not only the beginning illustrator, but also to the experienced.
